The Importance of the Custom Club
A few weeks back, I was lucky enough to sit on a panel in front of industry peers to discuss the benefits of “Custom Clubs”. That is, I chatted about the Fidelitas Wine Club and the hows and whys of letting our members select their own Club allocations. This is a big deal! It’s breaking away from the traditional Club model of “we choose wines and send whatever we want to you” that has been followed since the dawn of Wine Clubs. And while all of the boring (inventory) details may not be best suited for this blog, I think that there are a few key points worth sharing:
Selecting what is best for your cellar
Is your vertical of Optu Red Mountain growing nicely? Wish you had more Merlot and less Cabernet? Allowing members to create their own combination of wines in each allocation gives people the chance to take home the wines that they really want to shape their cellar. We are releasing 3 -4 brand new wines at each Club release, and members can select the exact quantities of what they are going to enjoy the most.
It’s important to note here that some members told us they don’t want the additional work of selecting Club allocations. I get it. Day to day life offers so many choices that sometimes you want wine to be the easy part. So – we will always have a pre-selected allocation as well that means great wines with no effort.
Winemakers get to have more fun
This is maybe the best part. Both for the members, and for us at Fidelitas. If we asked every Club member to take the exact same Club allocation, Charlie would be stuck making large quantities of the exact same wine in every vintage. The problem is, Charlie loves to make small lot quantity wines each year based on what comes in to the cellar. Following a custom club model means that he gets to create wines that are maybe 50 – 140 cases total, and members get to select these wines for their shipments. It’s a win/win, really.
Convenient ship windows and special pricing
We first started offering custom clubs to our out of state members. Knowing that they are often dealing with the inconvenience of having wines shipped when the weather may be too hot or too cold, and needing to have an adult signature for delivery, we wanted to design a Club just for them. Our Electus Club is designed to ship wine only in moderate temperature months, and offers additional discounts and complimentary shipping when 6-bottle shipments are rounded up to a case.
Try before you buy
Just last weekend, we launched our “preview tastings”. Two times per year, Custom Club members are invited to taste through the line up of upcoming releases and build their allocations at that time. We love letting people experience the wines before they make their selections, and also found that it was a great time to just connect with members and help them learn the ropes of our new allocation system.